Fancy, but ineffectual

User interfaces have achieved great progress over the years. You'll see ample evidence of it everywhere. Now things are animated. They move at a touch of your finger. Information's all over the place - more information than you could wish for.

Tragically, sometimes when attempting to improve the user-friendliness of a product by improving the interface, the opposite happens. The product actually becomes less usable. Here's one example...

Last year, I was in Vivocity, engaging in one of the activities I despise most - shopping.

Unfortunately this was unavoidable as my little nephew Paul had his third birthday coming up. So, lost amid the multitude of shops in Vivocity's bewildering layout, I resorted to using the mall directory. It was this stand-alone booth, with a large screen. On that screen was a user menu where you could search for the shop, either by name or category. Upon selecting a shop, nifty animated graphics would point you to the direction you needed to head. It was all very pretty. Very high tech.

The touch-screen
experience.

The only problem? It was a huge, glaring one. I had to wait in line to use it.

Now, that normally wouldn't be a problem - if the people in front of me made it quick. But no, presented with all that information regarding eating places (they were figuring out where to have dinner), they took their time examining each option and seeing how far they had to go for each one. And that's not even counting the clueless noobs who have to figure out how to use the interface!

Eventually, after a bit of walking, I found myself in the adjoining building, Harbourfront Centre. There, I saw a sight for sore eyes. Yep, a good old-fashioned physical mall directory. The kind with a big floor plan and a list of all shops on a board, with their names and unit numbers. And most importantly, several people standing around using it. Simultaneously.

Sometimes old-school is better.

They were all, I assume, going to different places within Harbourfront Centre. However, instead of having to wait in line while the ones using the directory hogged the damn system, they were able to consult it at the same damn time.

A compromise?

Now, I'm not saying that the UI in Vivocity was a bad idea. It was a pretty nifty idea. With a shitty-as-fuck implementation.

The way it was implemented saved space while cramming a lot of groovy functionality into one screen. A screen that only one party could use at any one time. Which kind of defeated the purpose. I'm not saying it should be abolished. I'm saying that it should have served as a value-add to the old-fashioned physical mall directory, instead of trying to replace it.

Imagine a list of shops and an actual physical map, next to the booth with the UI. Now those who want to be spoonfed by a computer system can use the UI, while those who just want a goddamn shop name and number can just look at the physical directory!

Moral of the story

Having a cool snazzy UI is neat and all. Just bear in mind why you're applying that UI, and be careful not to miss the forest for the trees.

How about a more mall-tifaceted solution?
T___T